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全球变暖，穷国受灾
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来源：双语时代 2007-6-29 15:38:00 |
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Poor Nations to Bear Brunt as World Warms
全球变暖，穷国受灾
背景介绍：
On Feb. 2, 2007, the United Nations scientific panel studying climate change declared that the evidence of a warming trend is "unequivocal", and that human activity has "very likely" been the driving force in that change over the last 50 years. The last report by the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in 2001, had found that humanity had "likely" played a role.
2007年2月，联合国研究气候变化的科学小组宣称全球变暖的趋势已经证据确凿，而人类的活动“很可能”是造成地球在过去50年里变暖的主要原因。这个科学小组的全称为联合国政府间气候变化工作小组。该小组在2001年发布的报告中声称，人类“可能”是全球变暖的原因之一。
The addition of that single word "very" did more than reflect mounting scientific evidence that the release of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from smokestacks, tailpipes and burning forests has played a central role in raising the average surface temperature of the earth by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1900. It also added new momentum to the debate concerning what to do about global warming. In recent months, American business groups have banded together to make unprecedented calls for federal regulation of greenhouse gases. The subject had a red-carpet moment when former Vice President Al Gore’s documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," was awarded an Oscar。
07年的报告中加了个“很”字。这不仅表明工厂、汽车排放的二氧化碳和其它温室气体，以及烧毁森林是导致地球表面平均温度从1900年以来升高了华氏1度多的主要原因，同时它也给如何应对全球变暖的大讨论加了一把柴。最近几个月，美国的商业集团开始以前所未有的热情，联合要求联邦政府出台法规控制温室气体的排放。此外，因前美国副总统阿尔•戈尔的纪录片《难以忽视的真相》夺得了奥斯卡最佳纪录片奖，全球变暖也就成了红地毯上的热门话题。
The greenhouse effect has been part of the earth’s workings since its earliest days. Gases like carbon dioxide and methane allow sunlight to reach the earth, but prevent some of the resulting heat from radiating back out into space. Without the greenhouse effect, the planet would never have warmed enough to allow life to form. But as ever larger amounts of carbon dioxide have been released along with the development of industrial economies, the atmosphere has grown warmer at an accelerating rate: Since 1970, temperatures have gone up at nearly three times the average for the 20th century.
早在地球形成初期，温室效应就是其自身运行机理的一部分。像二氧化碳和甲烷这类温室气体能够让阳光照射到地球上，但却会将产生的一部分热量留在地球表面。如果没有温室效应，地球表面绝不会温暖到足够生命形成。但是随着工业社会的发展，越来越多的二氧化碳被排放到大气中，大气层也在加速升温：上世纪最后30年气温升高的速度是整个20世纪平均速度的三倍。
The latest report from the climate panel predicted that the global climate is likely to rise between 3.5 and 8 degrees Fahrenheit if the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere reaches twice the level of 1750. By 2100, sea levels are likely to rise between 7 to 23 inches, it said, and the changes now underway will continue for centuries to come.
该气候小组的最新报告预测，如果大气中的二氧化碳含量达到1750年的2倍，那么全球气温可能会升高华氏3.5-8度。此外，该报告还预测，到2100年海平面将可能升高7-23英寸（17.8厘米—58.5厘米；1英寸=2.54厘米），而且这些变化会持续几个世纪。
The world’s richest countries, which have contributed by far the most to the atmospheric changes linked to global warming, are already spending billions of dollars to limit their own risks from its worst consequences, like drought and rising seas. But despite longstanding treaty commitments to help poor countries deal with warming, these industrial powers are spending just tens of millions of dollars on ways to limit climate and coastal hazards in the world’s most vulnerable regions — most of them close to the equator and overwhelmingly poor.
世界上最富有的国家是造成全球变暖气候变化的最大罪人，他们目前正不惜血本试图将气候恶果的风险降到最低，比如干旱和海平面升高。但是虽然这些工业大国早就做出承诺要帮助贫穷国家应付全球变暖，但目前他们花在遏制全球最脆弱地区的气候和海岸灾害上的资金才不过几千万美元。
Over the last few decades, as scientists have intensified their study of the human effects on climate and of the effects of climate change on humans, a common theme has emerged: in both respects, the world is a very unequal place.
过去几十年里，随着关于人类活动对气候的影响，以及气候变化对人类影响的研究不断深入，科学家们开始形成一种共识：从以上两个方面考虑，地球其实是一个非常不平均的地方。
In almost every instance, the people most at risk from climate change live in countries that have contributed the least to the atmospheric buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases linked to the recent warming of the planet. Those most vulnerable countries also tend to be the poorest. And the countries that face the least harm — and that are best equipped to deal with the harm they do face — tend to be the richest.
不管从何种角度分析，最容易受到气候变化影响的人往往是那些居住在排放二氧化碳和其它温室气体最少的国家的人。那些最易遭受危害的国家也是最贫穷的国家。而面临最少威胁的国家——拥有精良装备抵御危害的国家——却通常是最富有的国家。
Two-thirds of the atmospheric buildup of carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping greenhouse gas, has come from the United States and Western European countries. Those and other wealthy nations are investing in windmill-powered plants that turn seawater to drinking water, and in grains and soybeans genetically altered to flourish even in a drought.
大气中积聚的二氧化碳有三分之二来自美国和欧洲。他们以及其它富国正在积极投资抵御全球变暖可能带来的负面影响，比如建设风力发电站将海水转化成饮用水，研究可以在缺水条件下生长的转基因谷物和大豆。
In contrast, Africa accounts for less than 3 percent of the global emissions of carbon dioxide since 1900, yet its 840 million people face some of the biggest risks from drought and disrupted water supplies, according to new scientific assessments. As the oceans swell with water from melting ice sheets, it is the crowded river deltas in southern Asia and Egypt, along with small island nations, that are most at risk.
与之相比，非洲从1900年以来所排放的二氧化碳还不到全球排放量的3%，但是根据最新的科学评估，非洲8亿4千万人口将面临最可怕的灾难，比如干旱和缺水。此外，因为冰川融化而导致的海平面上升将给人口密集的南亚和埃及河口三角洲带来巨大的威胁。
"Like the sinking of the Titanic, catastrophes are not democratic," said Henry Miller, a fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. "A much higher fraction of passengers from the cheaper decks were lost. "
“就像泰坦尼克沉船一样，灾难不讲民主，”斯坦福大学胡佛研究所的亨利 米勒教授说。“更多的来自便宜低等舱的乘客丧生了。”
Those in harm’s way are beginning to speak out. “We have a message here to tell these countries, that you are causing aggression to us by causing global warming,” President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda said at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in February. "Alaska will probably become good for agriculture, Siberia will probably become good for agriculture, but where does that leave Africa? "
受害国要讨回公道。“我们在这要告诉你们这些国家一件事，那就是你们造成全球变暖，给我们带来灾害，”乌干达总统穆塞韦尼今年二月份在埃塞俄比亚首都亚的斯亚贝巴出席非洲联合峰会时说。“阿拉斯加可能会变得适合农作物生长，西伯利亚可能会变得适合农作物生长，但是非洲怎么办？”
Scientists say it has become increasingly clear that worldwide precipitation is shifting away from the equator and toward the poles. That will nourish crops in warming regions like Canada and Siberia while parching countries — like Malawi in sub-Saharan Africa — which are already prone to drought.
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